Although U.S. retail sales of herbal supplements reach into the billions each year, very little of these profits are from the sale of Chinese or East Asian herbs. This is due to the perception of quality—as such herbal medicine providers must show that their herbs are trustworthy.
To aid in this change, the NCCAOM Chinese Herbal Safe Compounding and Dispensing Taskforce has created a voluntary program, the Certificate of Qualification.
The course subject matter will be based on the FDA cGMP and the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) herbal safety white paper, which was released last year. Features of this new program include the following:
Tracking sources and lot numbers for all granule and raw herbs. (According to FDA cGMPs, individual practitioners are personally liable for herbal prescriptions. One should know where their herbs come from and the quality control taken by the suppliers.)
Ensuring that AOM practitioners fully understand the FDA, cGMP regulations and best practice standards to avoid any potential adverse effects and harm to patients.
Proper labeling of all custom formulas: all ingredients and amount per dose, patient and practitioner name, herb compounding date.
The objective in creating this Certificate of Qualification program is to garner the public's support of the AOM professional, and to demonstrate accountability and responsibility for patient safety.
The NCCAOM provides additional details regarding this new program in our upcoming June issue.
A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Acupuncture can be highly effective in cases of nasal congestion so common in allergy presentations; so much so that I often treat such issues using acupuncture protocols alone. In cases of seasonal allergies with highly predictable causes such as obvious elevations of environmental allergens, I use a skeleton acupuncture prescription that can easily be fleshed out to target potential underlying patterns and effectively customized to the patient.
The field of acupuncture in the U.S. continues to grow in visibility, patient demand and clinical effectiveness. Yet behind the curtain, many acupuncturists are quietly struggling to keep their doors open. While the profession is rooted in centuries of healing tradition, modern economic pressures – particularly those driven by insurance limitations, low reimbursement rates and job-market saturation – are making it increasingly difficult for licensed acupuncturists to thrive.
